


maybe I did steal your heart and I was such a perfect criminal you never noticed

by qualapec



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Loss, Love/Hate, Rough Sex, Sexual Content, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qualapec/pseuds/qualapec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Dark World. "They're both alone now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe I did steal your heart and I was such a perfect criminal you never noticed

Sif pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she pushed through the snow. It was up to her knees and her progress was slow, but she watched her landmarks in the darkened wood. On one hip, she wore a lamp with a glowing moth inside, in the other she had a torch, and around her neck she wore a pendant. Her shield and glaive were both fastened to her back to keep them from getting caught in the snow.

After a few minutes, she found the place she was looking for. It was an old, forgotten Midgardian cottage hidden under an outcropping of rock, linked to somewhere else in space and time. Overhead, the stone dripped with water. It served as ample protection, washing away the scent of magic and keeping numerous terrible things away. What the years had ripped from the home, Loki had returned to it – including total anonymity. Without the moth, the warding spells would have turned her away hundreds of yards before she could see it.

Sif stepped up to the cottage door and knocked three times.

Loki opened it. First, he offered her surprise, and then he stepped aside and told her to come into a space much larger than the outside, lined in white, with designs and lines not pulled from any one world – it had the height of Asgard’s rooms, the minimalism of Midgard, and the aloof chill of Jotunheim. This was a space that was _his_.

“The years have been too kind to you,” Sif said, her tone of voice implying she’d rather they hadn’t. She pulled at the string of her cloak. Strands of her dark hair were wet, and they framed her face. It was getting too long.

Loki deftly took it when she handed it to him, while Sif walked over to the fire, pulling her gloves from her chilled hands as she warmed her fingers over it.

“Or,” he went on, snapping the snow from the dark cloth before hanging it to dry, “more accurately, the years have been cruel to both of us, but crueler to you.”

That much was true. After Sif killed Jane and the Spirit following the battle with the Dark Elves, she went into exile. She’d finally understood what it meant to have no purpose, to punish herself in darkness and guilt. After the battle with Thanos, Loki finally understood what sacrifice meant. Together, they watched Asgard fall, its glistening towers crumble, its people burn, and its prince die with it. With half a heart, Sif wished she could have been there for that final battle. Instead, she and Loki both lived to tell of it, she had no greater pride and no greater shame.

Life had been cruel to both of them, so their customary greeting was a bitter joke.

“There’s tea if you’d like,” he said. Sif nodded, and sat down on the simple sofa.

She took the porcelain cup, sipped – there was a time when she never would have tolerated a drink so weak, but she was weary, and it was warm. “You were expecting me.”

“I saw you coming from some ways away and put the water on.” He didn’t hide his face from her anymore. Everything he had to offer was there, mercurial and always changing. No more pretenses. He no longer lied about being a liar, and she preferred him this way.

Sif placed her cup, half-empty on the table and removed her armor piece by piece, while Loki dryly continued talking about some magic or another he was working on. He stopped, mid-sentence, when he realized what she was doing, what her intent was.

She smiled, tugged the thread of the tunic at his throat. “There are better ways to warm up.”

That was a lie. Where her skin felt almost feverishly hot as it regained heat, his was always slightly cooled. When they were young, she thought it was because of poor circulation.

Loki glanced up, tilted an eye and moved his hand to her thigh because he knew. “Oh, cruel _indeed_.”

“Lonely, too.” She kissed him, fast and hard and unforgiving, and he relented, arching his head back as he pulled at her mail skirt.

They moved, stumbled towards his bed, tugging at every spare article they could. She was all fury, single-minded, came for one thing and she wanted to claim it, wanted to drown out the thousand threads missing from her life. He accepted it, redirected it for her, controlled and focused her energy into a single point. With her hands, she moved over his body, inch by inch, exploring what she was too cautious to explore as a younger girl, careful to avoid touching the scars she’d left on him. He offered her the same dignity.

She swayed over him, taunting him with high-pitched moans until that feral edge returned to him again, and he’d growl, frustrated, before bracing her hips against his and dragging her over, under him with a frenzy brought by frustration. Sif hissed in response, bracing her palm against his neck, catching on his jaw and squeezing just enough to show him she _could_ if she wanted to, his breath hitched in response. Power sparked something in both of them, and it burned between them like a fell flame. The closer they came, the more her grip slipped and the tighter she clung to him.

Then she _forgot_.

She crumpled in the bed next to him and he laid down at her side, close enough to touch. Neither of them liked to cling, but it helped to stay in contact. So she turned into him, still dazed in a happy glow, happy to feel anything but numbness, happy for the chance to pretend she hadn’t lost everything.

 “How odd that we were both exiles in the end,” he murmured in her ear, his finger tracing intricate circles on her shoulder. “How did that happen?”

“I did what I had to do,” Sif said. “You did what you wanted to do.”

“The two are one in the same for you now.”

It was true. She was the last noble daughter of Asgard, its last warrior, the sole carrier of their legacy. When she fell, the only stories told would be among the ghosts in the scorched halls and the archives of Midgardian 24-hour-news (the latter was no better than sinking into total obscurity, as far as Sif was concerned).

It also meant there were no more rules for her, other than the ones she made for herself.

This time was different though, she asked a question. “We could fight together again. Side by side. We’re the only ones left. It’s not like anyone would mind.”

After what happened with Thanos and the fall of Asgard, the Chitauri attack was almost a distant memory. She was sure that, with his expertise on a few cold cases brushing with the mystical, SHIELD would welcome an alliance.

There was a pause. “I think not, Sif.”

Whatever her reaction, she hid it behind her shoulder.

“Someday, I won’t be here just to accommodate your loneliness,” he purred over her ear with a well-hidden bitterness, with just enough of a promise to give it a double meaning. His lips grazed the space where her jaw met her throat and she shivered.

“Nor I yours,” She angled her head up to kiss him. “Until that day comes, I’ll keep returning.”


End file.
